


phantasmagoria

by diana_hawthorne (dhawthorne)



Series: Private Lives [19]
Category: Law & Order
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 16:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19177243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhawthorne/pseuds/diana_hawthorne
Summary: Jesse Unger is released from prison with a new obsession...Begins September 2000.





	phantasmagoria

**Author's Note:**

> Jesse Unger is the extremely terrifying perpetrator in the Season 2 episode "Star Struck."

Caroline has had dinner, her bath, and now is in bed, Topsy, her toy bunny from Mike, clutched to her chest. She is sleeping soundly in her crib, a blanket tucked around her, and she doesn’t want to leave the room, doesn’t want to have her out of her sight. But she has to go, so she strokes Caroline’s hair once more, gives her one more kiss, and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

Ben is out at dinner with McCoy and she is here alone. Every curtain is drawn, every window closed, and every door locked. The apartment is as safe as it can be, but she is still afraid.

These letters… the knowledge that someone, that he, is watching her, watching her daughter… that he knows where she lives… it terrifies her. Ever since the first one arrived three weeks ago she’s been looking over her shoulder. She’s too nervous to take the subway down to her office in case he confronts her near the platform. She takes cabs everywhere and waits inside until it arrives and she asks that the doorman checks to make sure the car is empty except for the driver.

This can’t go on. Something has to happen, she knows, but she’s terrified that whatever happens next won’t be good. She has prayed every night that her daughter is safe from this man.

She knew Jesse Unger was dangerous the first time they met, when he’d battered and beaten Lucy Neven, the former soap opera star. Sitting in the interrogation room with him and his psychiatrist, her skin crawled as he looked at her, watched her, with that little smirk on his face… she shivers, feeling sick to her stomach again.

She walks into her bedroom to collect the baby monitor, fighting back the urge to peer out the window to see if he is standing outside. She doesn’t want to know.

She goes into the living room and takes the time to make a strong, icy martini. She needs to relief of alcohol, needs to relax a bit, though she’ll only have one drink. If something happens… 

She is terrified. Terrified of being beaten like Lucy Neven, of screaming and having no one hear, of being raped again. Of being with her daughter outside somewhere and being attacked by him, of watching him hurt Caroline… 

_No_ , she thinks. _I will never let that happen._

She would give up her life for her daughter, to make sure Caroline is safe and happy and loved. She would give up her life just to make sure she survived, even though she wants to live, wants to see her daughter grow up. Caroline is only fifteen months old; how would she be able to survive without her mother?

Well, this is the reason why she asked Elizabeth Rodgers to come here today. She needs her help.

The apartment phone rings, startling her, and she nearly sloshes her martini out of the glass. She sets it down and stands, walking over to the phone. As she suspects, the doorman says that Elizabeth Rodgers is here for her; she tells him to send her up. She waits by the front door and unlocks it only when she sees Liz standing in front of the door.

They go through the usual niceties that colleagues and friends go through when they see each other after a long time and she locks the door behind Liz, then leads her into the living room.

‘This is difficult for me to say,’ she begins once they’ve taken a seat. ‘To begin.’

‘Okay,’ Liz says, leaning back in her chair. ‘What’s up?’

‘Do you remember reading about the Lucy Neven case?’ she asks slowly. ‘The man who stalked her and assaulted her…’

‘Yeah,’ Liz says when she trails off. ‘Your husband put him away, didn’t he?’

‘Only for eight years.’ She sighs and rubs a hand over her eyes. ‘I was working at the 2-7 at the time. I interviewed him--Jesse Unger--several times. He was released from Dannemora two weeks ago. He started writing me letters.’

‘What kind of letters?’ Liz asks.

‘The ones that he wrote to Lucy Neven… they are…’ she sighs again and leans forward, picking up the photocopied letters from the table and handing them to Liz. She reads through them and she closes her eyes, the words of the three letters she’s received echoing in her mind.

_I think about you often, how well you understood me, how you looked sitting across from me at the table at the precinct. I’m sure you look more beautiful now and I’ll be out of Dannemora next week. I can’t wait to see you._

And, _I was right, you are more beautiful than ever. Your practice seems to be doing well; I’m glad. You are so sympathetic and understanding, I can’t imagine why people wouldn’t want to be your patient, if only to talk to you, to sit across from you and have all your attention… I can’t believe I wasted so much time with Lucy, but I suppose she was the catalyst to bring me to you…_

The third one, which she received two days ago, chilled her blood.

_I didn’t realize you had a child, a daughter. She looks just like you. Does she like the zoo? Is she scared when the snow leopards roar? I don’t think she’s scared. She’s a very fearless little girl, very fond of meeting new people._

Liz blanches at the last letter and looks up at her. ‘Please tell me you’ve done something about this. This is terrifying.’

‘I’ve had a panic button installed at my office, and I’ve showed his picture to the doormen here and they won’t let him up.’ She looks down at the ground. ‘I tried to get a restraining order but the judge issuing them is a friend of the former Judge Silver, who heard my case against Merritt… well, my parents fought hard to have him removed from the bench, and he overstepped his judicial authority a few more times and he was removed last year. So his friend isn’t inclined to believe me and issue a restraining order.’

‘What about your local precinct?’

She shakes her head. ‘There’s no restraining order to enforce, so they won't do anything. Maybe if I still worked for the city... I called Anita, and she said she'd send a car around once a night, but she can’t spare anyone either.’

‘What does your husband say? Can’t he call McCoy or Lewin and ask for a favor?’

She closes her eyes for a moment, remembering their argument after this third letter. She had shown him the previous two when they arrived, which he dismissed just like he did this one. He thought she was blowing everything out of proportion, he hadn’t done anything except write letters, he hadn’t approached her, and no one could stop him from mailing her anything now that he was out of prison. She reminded him that this was exactly what happened with Lucy Neven... she ended up screaming at him, begging him to listen, to do something, anything. She screamed, ‘you promised to put this bastard away for Lucy Neven--don’t we matter more to you?’

‘You’ve already _done_ everything, Elizabeth! You’ve reported this to the police and you've tried to file a restraining report. What else do you want me to do?’

‘ _Anything!_ ’ she wept with fear and anger and grief. ‘I need you to do _something_!’

That was the wrong tactic to take; he shut down and told her she was being ridiculous and left for his club. 

‘No,’ she says at last. ‘And I called Jack but he’d already talked to Ben, and he said that he thought everything would be all right. But--Liz, I don't believe that.’

‘I believe you,’ she says. She sighs in relief. ‘What can I do?’

She clears her throat. ‘This may seem melodramatic, but I am putting my affairs in order. Rewriting my will, making sure that Caroline is the beneficiary for my IRA, that sort of thing. But the most important thing is to decide on her guardians.’

‘Yeah, I can imagine,’ Liz says when she stops talking.

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. ‘Ben is not Caroline’s father. Mike Logan is. I’d like you to do a paternity test to confirm that.’

Liz doesn’t say anything and when she opens her eyes she sees how stunned and taken-aback she is.

‘We were together for a long time,’ she says, the words coming out in a rush. ‘From 1991 until the day before he punched the councilman. We broke up then because I found out he’d cheated on me. And then a few years later Ben and I married, but after that case--the Uzielli boss being shot by his son--that night he came to see me. And… and then Caroline was born. Ben doesn’t know. No one knows, except you and him.’

Liz finally speaks, clearing her throat. ‘Why? Why me, I mean?’

‘I trust you,’ she says. ‘And--I need a record. If something happens to me--my parents will have custody of Caroline, or my best friend if my parents can’t, but--I want him to be able to see her, to be able to visit her… we see him every month and--’ she doesn’t know what else to say.

‘Yeah,’ Liz says softly. ‘I get it.’

‘She will need to know, one day,’ she says softly. ‘And if I’m not there to tell her… this will be the only way. And if I’m gone, or incapable of caring for her or telling her… at least she will be able to have a relationship with him, if she wants one.’ She leaves out what she knows is the truth, that he might not want to have a relationship with their child. That if something happens to her and Caroline grows up and wants to know him, he may dismiss her, he may make it clear to her that he doesn’t care about her or love her or want to be in any way involved in her life.

She has no idea what he will want to do, if something happens to her.

God, how can this be happening? She can’t leave her daughter, lose her daughter, because she has a stalker, because no one is taking her seriously… If something happens to her, how will her family be able to go on? How will her daughter grow up knowing that her mother was attacked by someone? How will Caroline have a relationship, or not, with her father without her there to protect their daughter from him? 

Liz clears her throat. ‘I’ll run the test when no one else is in the lab,’ she tells her. ‘Do you have a sample of her DNA? I have some of Logan’s on file.’

She nods, handing her a cotton swab encased in a ziploc bag.

‘Thanks. Do you want me to mail the results somewhere--?’

‘I’ll pick them up, if you give me a call when it’s ready. I will need two copies--one for my lawyer, one for Mike.’

‘Of course,’ she says, and pauses. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.’

‘Thank you.’

Liz stands up. ‘I’ll give you a call soon.’

She stands up and they walk towards the front door, though her friend and colleague pauses at the door.

‘What about Mike? Can’t he do anything?’

‘I haven’t told him.’

‘Why not?’ Liz asks, startled.

She’s embarrassed by her reasoning, by the insecurity she still feels about whatever meager relationship they have, and looks down at the ground. ‘I… I don’t want to hear him say that I’m exaggerating, or that he can’t help or doesn’t want to help… I just couldn’t bear that.’

‘Do you really think he’d say that?’ she asks, her usually brusque voice softer.

‘I don’t know,’ she admits. ‘I just don’t know him any more, and I don’t want to take that chance.’

She nods. ‘I’ll give you a call when the report is ready.’

‘Thank you,’ she says, and Liz opens the door, pausing again with her hand on the doorknob.

‘Take care.’

‘You too.’

There’s nothing more they can say, so Liz nods briefly and steps into the hallway, closing the door behind her.


End file.
